> What I /heart/ about the pre-2K bit of plastic is the way it takes control > over your TV/DVD and insists that you watch the copyright notices and it > tries to thrust the 'don't copy videos' advert on to you. Why should any > company have the right to stop you using your own DVD controls and force you > to watch the messages it demands that you watch. It 'steals' your > electricity and screen time to display its messages and if you tot up all > the hours people waste waiting to have control over their DVDs then you > realise that it wastes a lot of energy and is anything but green. Wonder why > this imposition hasn't been challenged in the courts. It is a small but very > annoying thing. > Useful tip: Turns out that pirated videos don't have these annoying warnings on them, allowing you to go straight to the film after you pop it in the player and offering a far more pleasant viewing experience because of it. Now you'll know for next time ;)
In all seriousness, who those messages are intended for is entirely beyond me. I even know the guy who cut together the original "Pirated videos are low quality" infomercial and the message I got is that it was no ones idea - it's just one of these things that got passed on and agreed by committee without any kind of sanity checking. It was originally a zero-budget one-off clip to be shown before (I think) LotR. As far as Blu Ray is concerned, it's pretty apparent to me that the manufacturers think the lack of uptake was down to the Blu Ray/HD DVD spat and not because people clearly have no need for either at present unless they have a full size cinema screen in their living rooms (which, granted, I'm sure some people do). The uptake of DVD was so rapid because people hated VHS. It was bad quality, it degraded over time, plus you had to rewind/fast forward on it, which was just annoying. DVD was a technology that was an obvious progression after the popularity of CD and is still of more than reasonable quality even for today's high spec TVs. There are no gaps in the market that Blu Ray is bridging. Iain - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
